Drama Therapy and Storymaking in Special Education

Paula Crimmens

• Publisher: Jessica Kingsley Publishers
• Year: 2006
• ISBN:
  9781846424861
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Psychotherapy
• Index: Psychology

Many aspects of drama therapy make it an ideal technique to use with students with special learning needs. This practical resource book for professionals covers the broad spectrum of students attending special needs schools, including those with attention deficit disorder, autism and Asperger syndrome, and students with multiple disabilities.

Paula Crimmens places therapeutic storymaking within the context of drama therapy and offers practical advice on how to structure and set up sessions to be compatible with special needs learning environments. She shows how story sessions can address issues of self-esteem and self-mastery, and how their use in groups is invaluable for building social and communication skills. The book includes traditional stories from around the world as session material, and includes guidance on how to devise stories relevant to older students, as well as a review of recent research into the effectiveness of drama therapy in engaging and retaining the attention of students with an intellectual disability.

1

Getting Started

Assessing the level of the group

A first step is to assess the group in terms of individual and group strengths. The more you know about individuals in the group, their likes and dislikes, their strengths and areas they need to develop, the better. Any other information you can get from other members of a multi-disciplinary team, for example, the physiotherapist, the speech and language therapist and the occupational therapist, can also be useful. However, people you know well can still react surprisingly in the creative atmosphere of the group, while groups about which you have very little information can develop well if you take things slowly and sensitively. Generally, the more disabled the students, the more support and input will need to be provided and the less spontaneity and initiative can be expected to arise naturally from the group.

Next, it can be useful to assess the level of the group in terms of the developmental age of the students rather than their chronological age. For example, I had a class of 7-year-olds who were developmentally, on many levels, no older than 18 months. They toddled or bottom shuffled, they were pre-verbal, they sucked their thumbs and one student put everything into his mouth immediately and explored it with his tongue. What we did in this group was vastly different to what I would do in groups of students who are developmentally 6 or 7 years old. This group of 7-year-olds was developmentally a group of infants and their needs were very fundamental. One of the classroom goals was to teach the students how to sit on chairs as part of an overall programme of teaching them appropriate school behaviour. The drama therapy sessions alternated short periods on chairs with activities that acknowledged their actual developmental needs. This is what Sue Jennings refers to on her ‘developmental play paradigm’ as the embodiment stage (Jennings, 1990), and Erikson refers to as ‘autocosmic play’ (1995). The activities involved the physical closeness of cuddling, singing and rocking as well as opportunities to explore the senses and the immediate environment while recognizing the infant’s pattern of needing to alternate exploration with reassurance.

Sometimes students who are chronologically teenagers are clearly pre-pubescent in their thinking, emotional maturity and interests. They will still enjoy the traditional stories and many of the activities that appeal to the younger students. However, for students who are adolescent and who may feel uncomfortable with some of the more childlike features of the session, there is a way of working with story that I will describe in Chapter 11.

Pitching the session at the right level for the students in the group takes experience and sometimes trial and error. As we build a relationship with individuals, we can be influenced by what we observe that they enjoy and if the atmosphere is playful, flexible and encouraging, everyone, both staff and students, can feel confident about expressing more of whom they are.

Working within the classroom environment

You may be running the group in a classroom, and this has a number of advantages and disadvantages. The first advantage is that in the familiar learning environment the students are less likely to be distracted, and the environment serves as a prompt for attentiveness. You may want to cordon off specific areas of the room and position yourself so that there is nothing too distracting behind you. A large space is not necessarily a good thing as it is easier to ‘lose’ students. If you find yourself in the gym or a large room, you can use room dividers to make the space more manageable. When I first began working in special schools, I wanted the students to experience more of the general space in the room, to encourage greater freedoms and spontaneity. At this stage, I conceived of what I was doing as an alternative to what was being offered in the classroom the rest of the time. I took students off their chairs and onto the floor and although I began the session with the group sitting in a semi-circle I tried to move out from it into the rest of the room, going on journeys and adventures. It did not take long for me to adapt my ideas and I soon learned that the structure offered by the simple use of the chair was invaluable. While the children have their own chairs, they have territory or delineated space that they do not have to defend. While on the floor many students began scratching, fighting with one another, and became clearly distracted by the other students’ close physical proximity. On the floor, some students would recline or lie down and stop paying attention, as if they were relaxing at home in front of the TV, whereas sitting on the chair reminded the student to pay attention. However, with profoundly disabled students, I try to get them out of their chairs and onto the floor supported by staff as much as possible. Many of these students spend a lot of time in chairs, which allow them to doze easily, whereas sitting supported on the floor demands far more of their muscles and gives the student lots of good body contact. Consequently, they tend to be more alert.

The second thing I learned was that any movement away from the semi-circle shape facing me caused a number of students to lose attention completely. They would become distracted by other objects in the room, return to stereotypic behaviours or generally drift off. I developed a way of working that complemented and supported the classroom aims of sitting in chairs, listening, staying on task and paying attention. Now most of the action takes place within the delineated space of the semi-circle with the students leaving their chair to perform and then returning to their chair. This doesn’t mean I abandon exploring the wider, general space in the room. I just limit it and avoid it on days when students seem particularly distractible. In some cases, I provide structure by giving students a rope or long piece of fabric to hold on to while they explore the space or use a thread drawn around the furniture in the room for them to follow.

One of the disadvantages of running the session in the classroom is that other people may not be aware that something special is going on which needs to be uninterrupted. It is very common in classrooms for people to wander in and out, speak to the teacher or withdraw a student. When I first began working in special schools, I was the only person who was running a group activity where I aimed to engage the attention of the whole group. Often there are other professionals employed in the care of the student such as occupational therapists and physiotherapists, whose job is to work with individual students. They may have no idea what you are trying to achieve and quite innocently come into the classroom and withdraw a student. It is worthwhile taking the time to explain some of your goals and asking people not to come into the classroom unless they absolutely have to and to avoid withdrawing a student before the end of the session. I often explain that in drama therapy, we use structured sessions to bring about a number of aims and objectives, one of which is to encourage absorption in the students. Absorption is a state where true learning and therapy can take place. It is often observed in ‘normal’ childhood development but may be very rare in some children and which further compounds their learning difficulties. In children whose attention span is short, the therapist and support staff work hard to continually redirect the child’s attention to a point where creativity is focused, roles are chosen and enacted and the child is taking part in the story in a very concentrated way. Everything in the session promotes this absorption, from the ritualized beginnings and endings, to the use of the circle, the repetition of key phrases in the story, and the careful choice of props and objects. The formal timetabling of drama therapy and the freeing up of staff to assist the drama therapist all support this process.

I have found that some staff not directly involved in the drama really appreciate the opportunity to sit in on a session. When this is the case, I encourage them to participate rather than just observe. They then get the chance to experience first hand what it is like to become absorbed in the story and how easily an interruption destroys the atmosphere you have carefully built up.

Teaching staff how to support the sessions

If you are a teacher using this book with your own class, you may already be familiar with both the students and your support staff. Two things may be a challenge for you. One is the need to set aside expectations that students will meet educational goals and learning outcomes. The paradox is that we are then free to notice the other achievements the student is making. I am not saying that there will not be educational outcomes. There will. Just do not focus on them. The second challenge may be to be more playful and relaxed with your students. Your efforts will be rewarded by how delighted the students are to see another aspect of their teacher.

If you are coming into someone else’s classroom, you need to appreciate how important the teacher is to the emotional security of the students in the class. Simply put, the more involved the teacher, the better the session. The students will look to the teacher for reassurance and if they see her enthusiasm, they will take their cue from her. They will look to her for leadership and when they see her defer to you, they will accept your leadership. This is not so important once the group is established, but at least initially, it is very important to have the enthusiastic participation of the teacher. If the teacher is enthusiastic about the benefits for her students but uncomfortable about participating in the session, then encourage her to use the time as she sees fit and focus more on getting support staff on board.

The main point I am making is that it is not possible or indeed preferable to run a group solo. Support might comprise one additional staff member in a group of older students who are highly functioning, or one-on-one staff support in a class of students with multiple disabilities.

Although it can be great to have an enthusiastic staff member, it is important that they do not take the attention away from the students. I have therefore identified five major ways in which staff can support you to run the sessions. These are redirecting attention, helping a student to do a task (either literally hand over hand or encouraging), discouraging unacceptable behaviour, modelling and playing a role. The first three ways may already be familiar to the staff member but the last two require further explanation. Most of the students in this setting are primarily visual: they learn through watching rather than through listening to verbal instructions. The notable exceptions to this are students with a nonverbal learning disability who learn best through step-by-step verbal or written instructions. Modelling comprises modelling a task you want the students to perform, or appropriate behaviour like looking attentive and enthusiastic. It may also involve elements of role-play. For example, the staff member may model chopping down a tree while in role as the woodcutter. A member of staff who is willing to role-play is a huge asset and students are often delighted to see this familiar person transforming themselves for the sake of the story. For staff members who are unfamiliar with this way of working some reassurance may be needed. I often say, ‘Don’t worry. I’ll tell you exactly what to do.’ Some staff are naturally dramatic and prove fun and exciting to work with. Some staff are much loved by the students and prove invaluable playing roles where you want to excite the students’ sympathy and concern.

Often staff are keen to help when they understand some of the rationale behind what you are doing but you also need to be clear about what you do not want. For example, you want students to volunteer rather than be persuaded or coerced. You need to be prepared to intervene if staff are persuading or coercing the students. Initially, staff may be anxious that their students ‘perform’ and they need to understand that in the early days of a group it is enough that the students sit in their chairs and watch what is happening. Staff may need to be reminded that the emphasis is on the process rather than the product. You may need to talk to them about the importance of offering choice even when the student may need a great deal of support in order to make the choice. To illustrate: in a profoundly disabled group, the staff member stands before a student in a wheelchair with two brightly coloured fabrics in her hands. ‘Now then, Paul,’ she says, ‘which one of these do you like?’ She offers the red one and watches Paul’s reaction. ‘Ah, Paul, I see you looking at the red one. What about this one?’ She removes the red one and offers the green one. Paul’s pupils dilate as he looks at the green fabric. He tracks and follows it as the staff member moves it around. ‘Oh, Paul, good looking. I think you really like the green one!’ She places the fabric gently around his shoulders.

Violet Oaklander, in referring to hyperactive children, says,

Making choices requires a sense of self; one must tune into one’s thinking and feeling functions in order to make a decision. Taking responsibility for one’s choice is a learning experience. In our zeal to create limits and structure…we often neglect to give them enough experience with the strengthening process of making choices. (Oaklander, 1978, p.230)

Make staff familiar with the catchphrases in the session such as ‘Everybody has a turn who wants a turn.’ If you want students to learn how to take turns they need to know that if they sit nicely and wait they will get their turn. If it means that you jettison what you had planned for the rest of the session so that everyone can have a turn, say, at a new activity which you had offered but were not sure would go down well, then so be it. Difficulties arise when the nature of the class is such that students who have already had their turn start to get restless. Balancing the needs of the individuals in the group is an art and one that demands much creativity on the part of the facilitator. The catchphrase ‘Everybody has a turn who wants a turn’ also leaves space for the student who doesn’t want to have a turn.

Creating the culture of the sessions

The culture that you are trying to create in the sessions is one of cooperation, mutual understanding, helpfulness and sensitivity towards others. These are themes explored in the stories, implicit in the stories, modelled, and practised in the sessions by all. The vital prerequisite for the cultivation of these qualities is safety.

In terms of therapeutic process, the drama therapist works towards giving the client an experience of safety. The therapeutic environment is one where a client may learn to trust. This trust takes the form of a trust of the space, of the therapist, of the group in the case of group dramatherapy and of the self. If the therapy space feels insecure, or the presence of the therapist is unreliable, it is difficult for the client to take in the nourishment that is offered. (Chesner, 1995, p.8)

It’s the facilitator’s job to ensure the safety of the group. There are two aspects to safety: physical safety – that a student is confident that they will not be hit or attacked in a session, and emotional safety – that they will not be laughed at or put down or made to feel bad.

‘The working ethos of the dramatherapy group is one which values the creative contribution and ability of each person, rather than focusing exclusively on what is dysfunctional or disabled’ (Chesner, 1995, p.131).

Physical safety

Any kind of hitting out, kicking or biting is unacceptable and the session cannot function with someone who is going to do that. A safe group, where people can move around and interact with one another without fear of being hurt, is essential. I will often interpret the aggression in terms of whether it is a reactive or a deliberate strategy although in both cases the response is approximately the same.

For many students, close physical contact with others is potentially distressing and sometimes alarming. Some students abhor loud noises, so sessions which include percussion or singing disturb them. In these cases, the hitting is a defensive action and what the student needs is distance and time to come back to him, calm down and prepare to return to the group. This process may only take a few moments. I will organize his chair to be withdrawn from the circle so that he can see what is happening but experience some distance from other students. It is immediately apparent that this strategy has been the appropriate one when you can see the student calm down and sit quite happily. He may need to be accompanied by a staff member.

Support staff may need to be taught how to use this strategy and to explain that it is not a punishment. You may need to teach them to be very matter of fact about withdrawing a student to sit on the chair and monitor their demeanour to assess whether they are ready to rejoin the group or whether it would be better for them to remain on the chair participating from a distance. You emphasize that there is no shame involved in this – just a recognition that for some students such close physical proximity with others combined with a lot of sensory stimulation may prove to be too rich a brew. You have provided something which the student in the moment could probably not articulate for himself: space. Instruct the support staff to check with the student every couple of minutes whether he wants to return to the circle and tell them not to apply any pressure. This is an important part of building within a student the confidence that his needs will not be overridden within a group situation. Often the reason why autistic students avoid group activities is that they are not allowed to take the space they need in order to tolerate close physical proximity to other people.

There is also the aggression that is habitual and designed to get a particular response from adults, usually attention. The time-out chair is a useful way of not rewarding unacceptable behaviour with attention. The next step is to teach th...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Of Related Interest
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• 1. Getting Started
• 2. The Use of Traditional Stories
• 3. Helping Others
• 4. Dealing with Change
• 5. Working as a Team
• 6. Trickery and Stealing
• 7. Stories of a Special Child
• 8. Unlikely Heroes
• 9. Competitiveness
• 10. Trust
• 11. Devising Stories: A Guide to Using Stories to Explore Themes in Everyday Life
• 12. Using a Visual Storyboard with Students with Autism
• 13. Drama Therapy and Engaging the Attention of Students with an Intellectual Disability: A Research Study
• References
• Useful Websites
• Subject Index
• Author Index